Season Log 2024-2025

[DComeaux]

Awesome. Take some for me.

[Rick]

Date: 12/25 Wed

Time: morning

Location: #3

Cloud Cover: partly early with some rain from a weak wet front blowing through later

Wind Direction and Velocity: SE light to moderate early and moderate to a bit gusty when front blew in from NW.

Temperature: shirt sleeve to glad to have a slicker

Moon phase:

Special Notes: Christmas morning hunt

Waterfowl Activity: Had black-bellies and teal around all morning, but also enough big ducks passing, albeit initially HIGH that we gave them a pass after a couple of the former (Preston was anxious to kill his first and Gauge couldn't resist also popping one when he did.) and few of the later.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Pretty darn good.

Hunters: 2, grandsons, Gauge and Preston

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Call got bit or stung by something when aired at 3 this morning, and his muzzle was swelling pretty quickly until I gave him the Benadryl dose I give those I see get snake bit, which arrested the swelling such that I deemed it safe to let him come along and retrieve a few.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Not a chance of one.

Kudos: The boys and I passed a mighty fine Christmas morning.

Birds By Species: 2 black-bellies, 6 gadwall, 4 green-wings and 6 mallards

Photo Ops: Call with his swollen muzzle and the boys' speck:

thumbnail_PXL_20241225_133245566.jpg

Gauge and Preston with their haul:

thumbnail_PXL_20241225_143525104.jpg

[Ericdc]

Chessie's just power through. If I ever get a duck dog, that's what I want.

Wonderful Christmas hunt Rick!


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[Duck Engr]

Wow what a Christmas present! Great hunt with your grandsons. Merry Christmas Rick!

[DComeaux]

What a wonderful hunt

[Bud]

Mighty fine, memorable hunt with 6 mallards, to boot. Great strap. Proud grandfather. Fine dog. Excellent Christmas presents.
The best to you and yours, Sir Rick.

[Ducaholic]

Merry Christmas!

[Rick]

Thanks, all. We were blessed.

[Rick]

Date: 12/26 Thur

Time: morning

Location: #3

Cloud Cover: real fog, high and thick all hunt

Wind Direction and Velocity: SE moderate

Temperature: cool

Moon phase: N/A

Special Notes: Crossing the open marsh stretch of our trip out was a bit of a "by guess and gosh" adventure.

Waterfowl Activity: We stayed covered up in lost squealers all hunt, saw just one big duck, a mottled that saw us, and, perhaps, a total of a dozen jacks and teal, and had no prayer of hitting any. Had a flight of blues and snows pass super low off Conway's end of the blind. (But suffer no casualties.)

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Squealers have never come easier.

Hunters: 2, father and grown son, Gary and Conway

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): easy morning

Special Equipment: spinner

Curses: incredibly poor shots.

Kudos: Nice guys whose hunts the black-bellies saved.

Birds By Species: 16 black-bellies and 2 fulvous whistling ducks.

[Duck Engr]

How many boxes of shells?

[Rick]

How many boxes of shells?

Don't know, but do know I can't recall a worse exhibition than poor Conway's. Had I not talked them into "warming up with a few squealers" while we waited for the fog to clear, we'd still be out there.

[Rick]

Date: 12/27 Fri

Time: morning

Location: #3

Cloud Cover: light fog soon clearing

Wind Direction and Velocity: SE moderate to light

Temperature: too warm for a shell over shirt sleeves

Moon phase: 11% waning

Special Notes: storm had just passed

Waterfowl Activity: Lots of black-bellies and little ducks around, but few big ones.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Little ones mostly did as bid, big ones plainly didn't want to land near a very tall man and his bright-faced son, so I quit fighting them.

Hunters: 2, father, James, and young son, Ruger

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Call had a good morning.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: It eventually worked, so I won't.

Kudos: Nice folks had a big time.

Birds By Species: 2 black-bellies, 1 blue-wing, 1 gadwall, 8 green-wings, 4 ringnecks and 2 shovellers

[Rick]

Date: 12/28 Sat

Time: morning

Location: #3

Cloud Cover: real fog

Wind Direction and Velocity: SE moderate

Temperature: warm

Moon phase: N/A

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: tons of lost black-bellies and some teal but next to no big ducks seen.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: fine

Hunters: 2, Kale and Dustin

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): easy morning

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: none

Kudos: nice guys had a big time

Birds By Species: 10 black-bellies, 7 green-wings and 1 ringneck

[Duck Engr]

Rick, did your computer explode?

[Rick]

Lightning hit our pole and blew the transformer, two TVs and our internet router. Hope to catch up in the morning.

[Duck Engr]

Uh oh!! Wanted to make sure we didn’t need to dispatch the WFF search and rescue team!

[Ericdc]

I bet that was quite noisy, glad y'all are ok.


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[Rick]

Uh oh!! Wanted to make sure we didn’t need to dispatch the WFF search and rescue team!

Well, I did get out of the rut that passes as my boat run across some big flats and go for a bit of an adventure in the dense fog a couple mornings ago, but found my way back to the distinct trail and made it to the blind on the next try. Put better markers out there after yesterday's hunt, though perhaps still not enough for new moon, dense fog (or heavy rain) mornings like our weekend's. Guess "We'll see..."

[Rick]

Date: 12/29 Sun

Time: morning

Location: #3

Cloud Cover: dense fog

Wind Direction and Velocity: SE

Temperature: warm

Moon phase: small if at all

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Covered up in black-bellies in the all morning fog, but didn't bother them, as there was enough of this and that for a good shot to pass them.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Just fine.

Hunters: 1, Will

Guns:

Malfunctions: Got out of the boat rut on the flats and took an impromptu tour back to their beginning for take two.

Dog(s): good morning for Call

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Just the ride out being a bit longer than par.

Kudos: Will may have been the best shot I've carried this season.

Birds By Species: 1 gadwall, 8 green-wings, 1 mallard, 1 pin and 1 ringneck

[Rick]

Date: 12/30 Mon

Time: morning

Location: #3

Cloud Cover: fog again but lighter

Wind Direction and Velocity: southerly moderate

Temperature: warm

Moon phase: ?

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Lots of squealers but waited out "ducks" until 9 before finishing with a pair. Not a whole lot of "ducks"

Waterfowl Responsiveness: They tried to be good, but we weren't always.

Hunters: 1, Bobby (not my buddy)

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Another good morning.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Bobby and I struggled to get on the same page about when to shoot what.

Kudos: He was still good company and shot better than most, when he'd let them work.

Birds By Species: 2 black-bellies, 3 gadwall, 6 green-wings, 1 mallard and 1 ringneck

[Duck Engr]

Aaaaand we’re back! Nice couple hunts during your technical (and sounds like navigational) difficulties. I don’t know how you navigate heavy fog. I’m lost within 50 yards without landmarks.

[SpinnerMan]

I don’t know how you navigate heavy fog. I’m lost within 50 yards without landmarks.

Yep.

I had to row about 60 yards on a diagonal across a small lake to get to the blind in a heavy fog. I only missed my mark by about 30 yards.

I also always set my decoys way too close to the blind when I set them in the fog.

[Rick]

I don’t know how you navigate heavy fog. I’m lost within 50 yards without landmarks.

Like that deaf, dumb and blind kid, the pinball wizard, by intuition.

[Rick]

Date: 12/32 Tue

Time: morning

Location: #3

Cloud Cover: light fog, then clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: westerly turning nw, nil to moderate

Temperature: warm

Moon phase: New

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Westerly wind had what seemed every black-belly in the marsh returning from the rice for the day over us, and there were big swarms of high green-wings later in the morning. Few big ducks seen.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Most black-bellies knew where they were headed but there were plenty that could be peeled off for Anna to work on her shooting. Think the big green-wings swarms that could be broke down overwhelmed both of my hunters.

Hunters: 2, father, Adam and young daughter, Anna, on her first hunt.

Guns:

Malfunctions: Anna's borrowed (from her great aunt) short-stocked 20ga 1100 wouldn't cycle, as it hadn't been cleaned internally in, well, likely forever, and my 20 was too long for her to get behind. So I operated in the blind and found it so carboned-up the barrel attachment ring wouldn't even slide off and back on the magazine tube. Didn't deep clean it, but did get it running well enough for her to burn a pile of shells.

Dog(s): Call had an easy (no doubt disappointingly so) morning with nothing at all making it to the grass before being finished.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: None whatsoever.

Kudos: Super nice folks passed a big time.

Birds By Species: 12 black-bellies, 4 gadwall and 2 green-wings

[Duck Engr]

I don’t know how you navigate heavy fog. I’m lost within 50 yards without landmarks.

Like that deaf, dumb and blind kid, the pinball wizard, by intuition.

Some people got it, some (me) don’t. I have a friend that I could blindfold, take him to the woods, hit him in the head with a 2x4 and he’d still make it home for supper. He’s saved my bacon more than once.

[DComeaux]

I don’t know how you navigate heavy fog. I’m lost within 50 yards without landmarks.

Like that deaf, dumb and blind kid, the pinball wizard, by intuition.

Some people got it, some (me) don’t. I have a friend that I could blindfold, take him to the woods, hit him in the head with a 2x4 and he’d still make it home for supper. He’s saved my bacon more than once.

I remember vividly a heavy fog morning where we had to cross the Intracoastal canal. We had a long run in a fairly narrow canal where I could see and follow a tree line on either side with no issues. The Intracoastal crossing was to a canal slightly left of course from the exit. I came to idle speed and headed out into the thick fog without lights thinking I could hold a straight track across the less than 1/4-mile width of the canal. As I motored along my cousin yelled out that it feels like you're turning left, to which I replied I'm not just be quiet.
After a little time passed a tree line appeared out of the fog ahead of us and we found ourselves back at the mouth of the canal where we had started out. I did in fact make a full left turn and luckily ended up back at our starting point. After a few minutes I decided to use the slight breeze as a reference, holding it in the same spot on my face as I motored my way across. That second attempt was successful. The thick fog had all barge traffic halted and as the fog lifted later that morning, there was a tug with barges parked very near our crossing.

[Rick]

Lots of horror stories about dense ICW fog and barge mooring lines.

[Darren]

Know that exact feeling, DC, of "feeling" a direction in the fog, etc. A buddy at the helm one morning leaving mouth of bayou into Lake P did the exact same thing, famously saying "hey look at that boat coming, they must be lost" when in fact it was the same boat that was following us out and he'd gone in a circle back toward them.

Electronics. Never. Lie. It was out there in my earlier hunting days of Mandeville shoreline I learned to go east and trust the GPS when it "felt" like I was going west and would run into the Lake P causeway pilings, never let me down.

[Rick]

Date: 1/1/25

Time: morning

Location: #3

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE moderate

Temperature: 40s

Moon phase: nil

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Disappointing show of big ducks with the little front or teal, for that matter. Had some black-bellies my folks didn't want to shoot and scads of jacks and spoons high, but only the later was apt to break.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Had to tell an, shall we say "enthusiastic caller" that either he could call or I'd call, 'cause we were running stuff off. In the end, I called, but couldn't hide for them. Between one thing and another we ran off most of what big ducks came by.

Hunters: 2, Lance and wife, Elizabeth

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): easy morning, nothing made it to the grass.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Biggest being that they both chain smoked upwind of me all morning.

Kudos: Otherwise pleasant folks (who didn't want to shoot squealers but were tickled with spoons) had a big time.

Birds By Species: 1 gadwall, 1 green-wings, 2 ringnecks, 9 shovellers, 3 wigeon and 2 wood ducks

[DComeaux]

Curses: Biggest being that they both chain smoked upwind of me all morning.

I hate when this happens.